Word: watkinson
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...kissing is presented this year I will permit myself to exercise it as an option, especially with tongue, although I recognize that's not everyone's bag, especially not Sarah Watkinson's, who told everyone in sixth grade that I was the "worst kisser ever" during a spin-the-bottle game, even though I know for a fact she'd just kissed one other boy before me, and that was earlier in the game...
...vocal works are the intimate English Canzonettas, simple setting of poems by Anne Hunter that prefigure the great lieder of Schubert and his contemporaries, and the cantata "Arianna a Naxos". These are coupled on a revelatory new disc from Virgin Classics' Veritas line (number 91215), with mezzosoprano Carolyn Watkinson and Glen Wilson at the fortepiano...
...Ariadne's psychological itinerary with bold figurations in the pianoforte accompaniment and extensive lyrical passages. The long recitatives are unusually developed musical and dramatic expressions. Wilson's playing demonstrates a sense for the maximization of the evocative possibilities in these passages without transgressing the bounds of bathos. Combining with Watkinson's unfailing vocal agility and expressive gusto, this wrings every ounce of dramatic potential out of Haydn's already amply suggestive recitatives. The overall effect is that of an opera in miniature, and the arias are reminiscent of Mozart's writing for the countess in the Marriage of Figaro...
...tender domesticity of the English Canzonettas contrasts with the broad sweep of the cantata, but Watkinson and Wilson still demonstrate their ability to exploit evocative possibilities in these short gems. The Canzonettas are fairly straightforward arrangements of strophic songs by an English poetess, accompanied by a setting of an excerpt from act II, scene 4 of Twelfth Night. Yet even if their tone is more modest than that of the cantata, their dramatic development is comparable. Haydn's delicate melody-lines are lovingly phrased by Watkinson, and Wilson audibly revels in the remarkably independent keyboard writing. The fortepiano passages contain...
...adequate if unspectacular. The heavily resonant acoustic of the Church in which the recording was made (St. Bartholemew's in Orford, Suffolk) seems inappropriate to the drawing-room setting for which the Canzonettas would originally have been destined. But this detracts only slightly from the overall listening experience. Watkinson's voice is splendid, negotiating passage that, originally written for castrati, are at times unsettlingly low. Wilson's accompaniment on the pianoforte rather than the modern piano is unexpected. However, right from the opening measures of the cantata, it seems to fit perfectly, illustrating ably the merits of performance on "period...